Baker Institute 20th Anniversary Program -- The Politics of Reform in China

Rice University"s Baker Institute celebrates its 20th year in 2013. To mark this milestone, we have planned a special series of events that highlight our programs and research. Join us throughout the year for lectures and conferences on important and timely issues, including U.S.-Middle East policy, U.S. fiscal policy and immigration reform.

As part of the 20th Anniversary program, the Baker Institute Transnational China Project hosts a discussion on the impact of new media on political reform in China. Over the last 30 years, the red banners, gongs and drums of traditional mass mobilization in the People"s Republic of China have gradually given way to microblogs, social networking and public service advertising campaigns. The media of politics in China have changed radically with the introduction of a global internet infrastructure, smartphones and social networking media, potentially making obsolete even such flagship print and broadcast media as People"s Daily, Liberation Daily and China Central Television. At this event, three Chinese media experts will examine what the once-in-a-decade leadership changes at the Communist Party of China"s 18th Party Congress last November and the introduction of the new state leadership at the 12th National People"s Congress last month reveal about how both China"s leaders and its average citizens alike are using new media to openly and frankly discuss political reform in the resulting digital public forums.

Speaker Aynne Kokas

Aynne Kokas, Ph.D., is the Baker Institute fellow in Chinese media and a sustainability postdoctoral fellow at the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University. Kokas’ current research focuses on the circulation of U.S. environmental media on Chinese social networks. She also has written extensively about the challenges and ...

Aynne Kokas, Ph.D., is the Baker Institute fellow in Chinese media and a sustainability postdoctoral fellow at the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University. Kokas’ current research focuses on the circulation of U.S. environmental media on Chinese social networks. She also has written extensively about the challenges and opportunities presented by public-private partnerships in Sino-U.S. joint ventures, with particular focus on the media industries. Prior to Rice, Kokas was a project manager at the UCLA Anderson Center for Global Management and a teaching fellow in the flagship Global Environment Program at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Kokas has been a Fulbright scholar and a Social Science Research Council fellow in Shanghai, a Foreign Language and Area Studies grantee in Taipei, and a Chinese Ministry of Education fellow in Beijing. She also received multiple U.S. Department of Education grants in focusing on Korean language and culture. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, Kokas also speaks German and Korean. In addition to conducting research in Sino-U.S. industrial relations, Kokas has also worked as management consultant focusing on Chinese market entry strategy. She holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from UCLA.